NA body seeks police briefing on Pims rape case

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly standing committee on human rights on Monday took up the recent rape case at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and directed the hospital management to ensure such incidents did not occur again.

Moreover, the committee also decided to call the police to get a detailed briefing on the investigation. The hospital administration informed the committee that a case had been initiated to terminate the services of the employee allegedly involved in the incident.

On April 9, a 20-year-old female patient was allegedly raped by an official of the hospital in the ICU.

Hospital admin says forensic report would be received by end of the month

The Pims administration constituted a three-member committee, headed by Dr Abid Farooqi, to probe the incident. The case was also taken up by the prime minister’s inspection team and later referred to the police.

Hospital admin says forensic report would be received by end of the month

Pims Vice Chancellor Dr Javed Akram informed the committee at a meeting that according to the medical report the girl was not raped. Moreover, there was no witness to the incident, he added.

However, there was no reason for the girl to make a false allegation against an unknown person. “So it would be better to wait for the forensic report which may be received by the end of this week,” he added.

A medical report is based on the physical checkup of the victim while in a forensic examination samples are sent to a laboratory for the DNA and other analysis.

The chairman of the committee, Babar Nawaz Khan, said it was a disturbing incident and cannot be ignored.

“Police should be summoned after a week to get an input as by that time the forensic report would also be received,” he said.

MNA Zahra Wadood Fatemi also said such incidents cannot be tolerated. A standard operating procedure (SOP) should be prepared to avoid such an incident in future. “Unfortunately, the bill regarding rape could not be passed by parliament due to which strict actions cannot be taken against any culprit,” she said.

The committee suggested that there should be an arrangement for monitoring patients at the intensive care units, and female patients should be looked after only by female staff.

But Dr Akram clarified that CCTV cameras cannot be installed in ICUs because of the patient privacy.

“Though there is an SOP, dealing with such incidents is a problem all over the world. As many as 17 cases were reported in the United States last one year. It has been decided to take further steps to avoid such incidents,” he added.